"Mesh or bandages?"

"What?"

"What does a guy like more on a girl? Mesh or bandages?"

"What the hell kind of question is that!"

"I'm curious!"

"How the hell would I know that? I'm not a guy!"

"You sure act like one sometimes, Forehead."

"SHUT UP, PIG!"

You know, Forehead really needs to get laid or something. I can't take being the best friend of a basket case all the time. I just wanted a simple answer and she acts like I've broken the law.

"Can you two please settle down?"

Speaking of the law, here's our by-the-book team member. I mean, yeah she's teamed up with holier-than-thou Neji but Lee seemed to enjoy life occasionally. But no, it's always "You have to be more serious or you could be killed," or "You can't wear heels that high on a tactical mission…"

"Ano… I-I think I s-see our target."

And on the flip side, we have our little mouse that wouldn't dare offend anyone and therefore just tries to follow everyone's orders. It's amazing she doesn't just run around in circles all day.

Honestly, how I ever got on a team with these three…

"Panda, take the right flank, Sparrow, take the left. Pig and I will cover escape routes."

"Whatever, Forehead."

I smirked because I knew she hated it when I call her that. But it's only fair. She's the one who insisted on permanent code names and I mean what else could we use? I jumped down and covered the rear though I knew it was useless. Tenten and Hinata have flawless records at this point when it comes to assassinations.

I pulled out the nail file and smoothed a few of the rough edges on my hands while I waited. Sure enough a few seconds later the confirm kill order came in. Again, it was pointless but I walked over to where the other three were.

"Huh, I don't think this one is dead," I said, prodding the one with a kunai in his eye with my foot.

"What's wrong with you today!" Sakura demanded.

"I'm bored," I snapped. "These are trivial missions. When are they really going to give us something hard?"

"She is right," Tenten stated. "I mean, Chuunins could have taken out this bunch."

"Per-perhaps Hokage-sama thought it would be harder…"

"Perhaps she was drunk and didn't…" I interrupted.

"She's wasn't DRUNK!" Sakura yelled. "She just… doesn't have enough support in the council to grant us high level missions yet."

"You should have told us that from the start," I stated. "Fine, I suppose we'll have to keep doing these sorts of things until they realize our greatness. But until then, I suggest we start training in other ways."

"L-like how?" Hinata squeaked.

"By understanding how the majority of our targets think. So assignment one, mesh or bandages."

Tenten snorted. "What sort of assignment is that?"

"If we need to seduce enemy shinobi it'll come in handy. And after all, aren't you curious? I mean, obviously you wear bandages… unless you really are that flat-chested."

I tilted my head to the right just in time to avoid the carefully aimed senbon that was thrown to illustrate exactly how wrong I was.

"I'm just saying it would give us something to do."

"She's right," Sakura sighed. I almost passed out at that. Forehead… agreeing with me? "If we can show that we're taking this seriously enough that we work on our skills outside of missions, it'll give Tsunade more fodder to ask for higher level missions."

"Yosh!" I said, clapping my hands together. "We'll meet in one week and discuss our results."

A week later, I wasn't met with an enthusiastic group of young kunoichi. Instead, they seemed rather worn and unhappy. Tenten was sporting more then her normal number of bruises. Hinata was apparently trying to wear both mesh and bandages and Forehead looked like she was more then her usual state of annoyed.

I, on the other hand, was in perfect condition. But then I actually cared about things like my appearance and not looking like a total slob.

"What the hell happened to you?"

"Your mission," Sakura replied.

I was in disbelief. "Are you kidding? I just asked you to find out some simple information! You could have just asked your teammates…"

"We did," Tenten replied.

I stared at them as I finally sat down. "Okay, well, I don't know what you did but I just asked Chouji and Shikamaru what they thought."

"Chouji said neither was edible and Shikamaru said both were too troublesome?" Sakura asked.

I flustered. Stupid Forehead. Of course that's what they said at first. "Well, I didn't give up at those answers. I kept asking until they said that there was no question that mesh was the best."

Tenten sighed. "Of course that's what they said. That's what you wear now! If you had asked a year ago, they would have said bandages."

"So? It's not like I would get upset if they said bandages." All three girls stared at me with disbelief. I frowned. "Well, it's not like I would get violent."

They didn't blink.

I resisted the urge to growl at them as that would only prove their point, and moved my attention to the Tenten. "Well, what about you? What did Saint Hyuuga and Bowl Top say?"

Tenten furrowed her brow for a second as if to ponder exactly what that meant but decided to just let it go and moved into her story instead.

She had found her teammates in the same spot as always, practicing on the field of their gennin days. There wasn't as much destruction as usual so she figured they must be in a good mood.

"Hey," she called out in greeting upon entering the center of the ring.

"Hi, Tenten!" Lee cried happily, suddenly appearing next to her.

"Aren't you supposed to be training with your other team today?" Neji asked, almost annoyed by the fact that she had broken into the training routine.

She ignored the sarcasm laced under that. "Look, I have a mission question. If you had to choose, would you prefer a kunoichi in bandages or mesh?"

"Bandages."

There was a brief pause and Tenten almost felt relief. That was much easier than she thought. She had expected some argument to occur because of it but…

Hang on… that was only one answer with two voices…

She looked up at her teammates, each of whom was shooting annoyed glances at the other.

"Of course, unlike other people, I only require support on my arms," Lee stated.

"It's not just a matter of support. Having extra provides enough bandages if there was a medical emergency."

Tenten cringed and attempted to take a step back. It was a stupid point to argue, any sane person could see that. But obviously, the two of them were never sane when it came to arguing.

"So what happened next?" I demanded, breaking into Tenten's narrative.

"They fought it out, took out about half the forest before I tried to stop them."

"Well that would explain the bruises," Sakura replied, reaching over and waving a chakra laced hand over it, forcing them to recede.

Tenten sighed. "Thanks, but honestly… they'll be back tomorrow. Those two would fight over what day New Year's Eve was on."

I cleared my throat. "Moving on… Hinata. Report."

"Ah," she jumped. "Ano… Shino-san preferred bandages and Kiba-kun was more favorable of mesh."

"Isn't that what they wear normally?" I pointed out. She nodded slowly. "You did ask them what they liked on a girl didn't you?"

Hinata turned a slight shade of pink and I sighed. No, of course not. She was too shy to ask anything like that.

"Forget it. Forehead." Sakura glowered at me for a moment. "So… what did you find out."

She cleared her throat and attempted to regain her composure. "I managed to track down Naruto and asked him exactly which he preferred."

"And?" I prompted.

There was a prolonged pause. "Both," she stated. "Mesh because it's good for draining ramen noodles in and bandages because you can use them if you get stuck in the bathroom and the paper runs out."

Tenten snickered and I was… well I think the disgust was plain on my face. "Your teammate is an idiot."

"Didn't argue that," Sakura replied.

I was going to move on when I saw an immense amount of fidgeting out of the corner of my eye. I looked over and noticed Hinata was attempting to sit still and failing miserably. She was still trying to find a way to make the mesh and bandages work together.

And then I realized it. The reason why she was so desperate to find a way to make the mangled mess work, why she was desperate to have both on at the same time.

"You like NARUTO!" I screamed, jumping out of my seat and pointing at her.

Hinata stopped moving and paled considerably. Okay, so maybe I shouldn't have yelled it but…

"INO!" Sakura yelled, yanking me back down into my seat.

"Ow!" I protested. "What is your problem?"

"Can you be more insensitive?" Sakura hissed. "Honestly, it's not like Hinata wants that to be common knowledge."

I blinked. "You knew?"

"Even I knew," Tenten stated. "I mean, it is obvious."

"It is?" Hinata squeaked, turning back to suddenly fidgeting.

"Huh, wonder why I didn't see it," I stated.

"Maybe if you were a bit less self-absorbed," Sakura replied.

But I didn't really hear her. I had a mission now, a mission of true love! Because even that idiot Naruto deserved to be happy. More importantly, it was for Hinata. That was the point of this whole project of Sakura's. Give kunoichi more confidence. I was going to help Hinata nail the man of her dreams and my nightmares.

Man, I am such a good person.